"Every picture has its shadows, and it has some source of light." - Joni Mitchell

Monday, February 1, 2010

A Single Man

Lots of cooking this weekend -- clam chowder on Saturday, and last night a fish dish layering butternut squash, cauliflower and pollock wrapped in thin potato slices. Our friend Adam came over to share last night's dinner, which also included blackberry and pear cobbler.

(I used to pick blackberries in the wild while growing up in Florida, and my babysitter often made cobblers from them. It still irks me to spend $3.99 for a carton of blackberries, when to me they should be as free as water or air.)

On Saturday we watched DVDs of "Marnie," one of Hitchcock's lesser efforts from the '60s, and "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls," known mostly for being Roger Ebert's one screenwriting venture. "Beyond" was a spectacularly, phantasmagorically bad picture, but at the same time a riveting period piece. It had nothing to do with Jacqueline Susann's book or the movie of that book. It was just a drug-fueled psychedelic romp of unknown actors, bared breasts and fake blood spatters. There was even a beheading!

Yesterday we went to see "A Single Man," Tom Ford's movie (adapted from Christopher Isherwood's novel) about a professor coping with the sudden death of his partner of 16 years. It was a good movie in places, with terrific performances by Colin Firth and Julianne Moore -- in fact, Firth is being buzzed about as a potential Oscar nominee. But I thought the film crawled a bit and was too heavy on style, to the detriment of content. You could tell the director is a fashion designer!

4 comments:

Love the film reviews. Also LOVE that picture. Wow. Beautiful. Like mustard and ketchup, with a tree shadow.

I also love it that you watch so many different kinds of movies. And that you eat good food.

I don't mind paying $3.99 for berries. Somebody has to pick them, package them and ship them to your grocery store where someone has to receive them and someone has to stock the shelves with them, and someone has to stand at the checkstand to sell them to you. Seems worth it to me. But I didn't grow up in Florida.

Well, maybe "irks" is too strong a word, Reya. You're right -- there's a long supply chain between the produce and the final consumer, and I can respect that all those folks need to make a living. It's just conditioning. I feel the same way about citrus -- I picked so much of it for free that paying for it always throws me a bit!

About Me

I'm an American living in London with my partner, Dave, and our dog, Olga. My idea of the perfect day is taking a long walk and bringing the camera. I began this blog to show off my photos, but gradually added words to the mix. Now, it's more or less my daily journal.